LiL JaBBA Marches Into Battle With “Grey”

“It’s galloping across a warfield—dodging projectiles, you gotta avoid all the strife all around and keep going yeah.”

It makes sense that when he's not crafting future-facing productions, LiL JaBBA is a painter. Having drifted from his footwork beginnings to more expansive explorations in grime, jungle, and pretty much anything in between, the Brooklyn-based Australian artist creates whole worlds within his tunes with just a few careful brushstrokes.

Asked by The FADER to describe his new track "Grey," JaBBA first told us that Keep, his new EP for Local Action, is a "glimpse into a Jabbian fiefdom"—a fiefdom being "the estate or domain of a feudal lord," cheers Google—before painting a picture of conflict and chaos. "['Grey'] is galloping across a warfield—dodging projectiles, you gotta avoid the strife all around and keep going yeah," JaBBA explained over email, nodding to the missile-like synths that zip in and out of the minimal track.

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Coming back to mundane reality, JaBBA added: "I’d like to consider this EP a nice mix of high octane and work music. I’m always painting in my studio to these tunes so they can function during a dance or as musical ambience. It’s the first wave in the storm of new stuff I’ve been working on this past year. I’ve just been jumbling up all my influences and leaving them in a cave to mature—I’m excited to see what creatures emerge from the cave soup." Us too.